CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

As an artist and visual arts teacher, I have wondered about creativity many times throughout my life. From being in art school to teaching high school, I have always wondered what makes a person “creative”? Is creativity something that one possesses naturally or can it be taught, just like any subject? If creativity can be taught, then why was it missed in my education or was it forgotten somehow? Was it overlooked or not important to all of my teachers? I have always been taught that drawing is a learned skill; by that, I mean everyone can do it: people just have to be taught how to do it. Does the same go for creativity: can it be taught, how can I develop my own creativity, is that even possible later in life? These are some of the questions I have always had while I head down this road/journey of questioning what is creativity? After a time, the questions transformed into what is the role of creativity in the age of digital media in the art curriculum and the influence creativity has on students’ resilience and expression? How can high school art teachers use the visual arts to teach creativity?

Definitions of Creativity and Imagination

It is common to see articles focusing on creativity with a lack of a clear definition of what creativity is. Most define creativity as the individual’s use of knowledge, imagination, and judgment within the constraints of an environment and its resources (Slocombie, 2000) in order to solve problems in an innovative, high quality, appropriate manner (Kaufman & Sternberg, 2007). This study has helped me to have a better understanding of what creativity is.

While trying to make the connection of creativity and imagination we run into the same issue, there is no clear definition of imagination. Apparently, there is a great amount of confusion as to the meaning of imagination, Maxine Greene (1995) sees imagination as the capacity for confronting the wall. The wall is an opportunity for one to be rebellious, creative, and resisting certainties, according to Greene (1995). It will be through Imagination that the wall will be conquered, or the wall will conquer you. Everyone has the opportunity to conquer their own walls, although some refuse to see the wall for what it is. Visual arts teachers or teachers, in general, should help students to address the ways in which they can overcome this obstacle of not being able to see what the wall really is.

Students not only learn from the teachers, the students sometimes switch roles and become teachers, the teachers learn from their students simultaneously (Greene, 1995). “In my view, the classroom situation most provocative of thoughtfulness and critical consciousness is one in which teachers and students find themselves conducting a kind of collaborative search, each from his or her own lived situation.” (Greene, 1995, p 23). This is where visual arts teachers should take the opportunity to have their students search for solutions to real issues, issues that are not made up in the classroom for students to practice their critical thinking skills, but that are important and/or meaningful for the students. As Greene says teachers need to take advantage of the “not yet” way of thinking in the students and bring it into being. Teachers need to explain to their students they cannot possibly know the answer to everything or every question, but they do possess the tools to figure out the answers and conquer those walls. Greene (1995) talks about the importance of considering the multiple realities and or experiences of the students and ourselves as teachers so that we work at pushing the limits of dominant discourse. We should also expose our students to the arts, a rich literature of multiple types (poetry, prose, plays), music and film and the importance of making connections to a higher level and critical thinking.

Greene (1995) along with Eisner (2004) argues the importance of the arts in education, Greene believes this to the point where she says the arts is fundamental in education. “At the very least, participatory involvement with the many forms of art can enable us to see more in our experience, to hear more on normally unheard frequencies, to become conscious of what daily routines have obscured, what habit and convention have suppressed.” (Greene, 1995, p 123). Students need to do, create, and experience the arts to expand their thinking and awareness. This can be seen in the visual arts classroom when students create an artwork they are proud of, their eyes brighten up when they are asked about their artwork, it makes them more eager to create new work. This also increases the intrinsic motivation (the satisfaction one gets from one’s own artistic expression) towards producing works of art that Eisner (2004) puts forth. Everyone has a natural wanting to help solve problems, look for new ways to communicate, to create and make new things or improve on old ones. Greene states: “Art offers life; it offers hope; it offers the prospect of discovery; it offers light.” (Greene, 1995, p 133). Greene says these experiences cannot be add-ons but are essential to developing new understandings and critical thinking. “We want to enable all sorts of young people to realize that they have the right to finding works of art that are meaningful against their own lived lives.” (Greene, 1995, p 150). As visual arts teachers, we must remem